304 Quotes About Nihilism

Even as a child, when I lacked for nothing, I wanted to die: I wanted to surrender because I saw no sense in struggling. I felt that nothing would be proved, substantiated, added or subtracted by continuing an existence which I had not asked for.

I was born in a town that was straight out of a fairy tale. Many people died there, and when I walked away, I held hands with my other self. To me it seemed like we were the only two people in the world. Neither one of us possessed a real name. -Johan Liebert

Bana öyle geliyor ki, hakikaten yapabileceğimiz bir tek iş vardır o da ölmek. Bak, bunu yapabiliriz ve ancak bu takdirde irademizi tam bir şey yapmakta kullanmış oluruz. Ben ne diye bu işi yapmıyorum diyeceksin! Demin söyledim ya, müthiş bir gevşeklik içindeyim. Üşeniyorum. Atalet kanunu icabı sürüklenip gidiyorum. Eeeeh.

And no one cares. You kick and scream and cry out into the darkness,and no answer comes. You rage against the unfathomable injustice and twoblocks away some guy watches a baseball game and scratches his balls.

Demek hayat öyle iki adım ilerisi bile görülmeyen sisli ve yalpalı bir denizdi. Tesadüflerin oyuncağı olacak olduktan sonra ne diye irademiz vardı? Kullanamadıktan sonra göğsümüzü dolduran hisler ve kafamızda kımıldayan düşünceler neye yarardı? Yaşayışımıza ve etrafımıza şekil vermek arzusuyla dünyaya gelmekten ise hayatın ve muhitin verdiği şekli kolayca alacak kadar boş ve yumuşak olmak daha rahat, daha makul değil miydi?

Dostoyevsky has become a teenager’s writer, the issue of nihilism a teenage issue.

Let’s say -for the sake of the argument-, whatever you do, doesn’t matter in the great scheme of things. But the thing is we don’t live in the great scheme of things. We live only in a part of it. So, even if it doesn’t matter in the great scheme of things, it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t matter.

The fundamental principle of Nihilism, properly so-called, was absolute individualism. It was the negation, in the name of individual liberty, of all the obligations imposed upon the individual by society, by family life, and by religion. Nihilism was a passionate and powerful reaction, not against political despotism, but against the moral despotism that weighs upon the private and inner life of the individual.

I would, thank God, watch the universe perish without shedding a tear.